Welcome to the Bringing the Human Back to Human Resources
podcast. I'm Tracy Chernoff, and I've
spent my entire professional career in HR.
Each week. We'll explore the delicate
balance between people and business.
With the. Aim to reconnect the two and
create meaningful outcomes. Listen in as I share my own
experiences, challenge the status quo, and chat with guests
from various industries about our mission to bring the human
back to human resources. Hi, everyone.
Welcome back to the Bringing the Human Back to Human Resources
podcast and the Policy Pulse episode of this month.
And we have some stuff on the agenda this week that is hot off
the press, like as in the last 90 or so minutes, according to
Brian. So just a heads up, we're going
to be talking about a couple of cases that we've kind of talked
about a little bit or we kind of alluded to some things that were
coming down the Pike. But just so you know, there's a
probably going to be more information that we'll be able
to share as we learn more. But this is super, super, super
new information and we have a really interesting agenda.
So we have two opinions is a couple of court cases that we'll
share. And then we're also going to be
talking about AI regulation in none other than the state of
Texas, which is shocking in so many ways.
So stay tuned for that. That'll be toward the end of the
episode, but why don't we jump in?
Brian, Thank you again for being our policy Pulse resident
attorney expert and in all things HR and employment and all
of that jazz. So with that, walk us through
this Ames V. Ohio and what this whole opinion
is kind of presenting within this court case.
So like you said, this one just dropped this morning, just
within the last 90 minutes, 2 hours.
This we, we have touched on this one before the Ames V Ohio case.
This was a, a white woman who was passed over for a couple of
positions that were given to minority applicants internally.
And she sued. It's not a legal term, but she
sued essentially under the guise of of reverse discrimination.
And today, to get right to the point today the Supreme Court
unanimously decided that her case was valid, that the actions
taken by her employer amounted to discrimination.
Essentially, what the court has said, we can get into some more
details, but essentially what the court has said is that
nowhere in the statute from Congress back in, I don't know,
whatever it was 50 years ago, does it say that discrimination
is illegal unless you're white, unless you're heterosexual,
unless you're a male. Like there are no disclaimers.
It is discrimination. So that's why this is not
necessarily a surprising outcome.
But now we have it officially in our hands and it settles some of
the discrepancies between the circuits because there were some
circuits that were using this standard and other circuits that
were not. Wow.
This is, I mean, I guess it's, it isn't surprising, but part of
me was a little surprised because it's not necessarily a
case that someone may be on the surface would think would be 1.
Because so much of what we see from a, you know, a litigation
standpoint in terms of discrimination comes down to
minority or marginalized groups, which of course women are part
of that. But it's just, it's just
interesting because I think it is fairly different compared to
other cases that are out there or at least other cases of
discrimination that have kind of come up or have come across our
desks, so to speak. But at the same time, I think
it's really interesting in terms of why this matters to those of
us in HR and what this kind of further validates for everyone.
Because to your point, there is this whole framework that didn't
exist. That was that that you just
pointed out that it didn't exclude these other groups and
that discrimination can happen across these other groups, that
discrimination can happen to anyone.
So how does this impact HR and HR leaders?
Yeah. And essentially the the the
terminology is that this is sort of a a background circumstances.
So the background circumstances is that this person is a member
of a majority group. And so they have a higher burden
to prove discrimination in the workplace.
And that is what the court is saying is, is that's that's not
legitimate. Wow.
Interesting. Yeah.
So the, there's several takeaways and, and one of them
that I'll get to at the end is actually in a concurring
opinion. But the the big take away for
HR, and this is something that you and I have talked about a
lot, is apply equal standards across the board.
All employees need to be treated the same and treated fairly.
So there's no higher bar for a straight employee, a white
employee, a male employee, whatever.
To prove discrimination under Title 7, you simply apply the
same discrimination standard regardless of the people, the
individual characteristics of the people involved in the
situation. Aligned with that, we want to
make sure that we're enforcing consistent policies and
practices. We want to make sure that
managers are being trained on how to how to spot potential
discrimination and what to do when information like that comes
up, whether it's it's from their own own analysis or from another
employee coming to them. This from a business
perspective, this is crucial to ensuring that the company has an
adequate defense to any any potential discrimination claims
from employees. So the concurring opinion in
this case was written by Justice Thomas and he he noted some
concerns about an additional framework.
So this is not concurring opinions don't change any, any
laws. It's just basically a way for
someone or more justices to say, hey, I think we should also
address this just to essentially give people a heads up.
It can also sometimes be a, a bit of a, a wink to, to advocacy
groups saying, hey, find a case that matches what I'm talking
about here. We'll take it and maybe rule in
your favor. But essentially there's a
actually from a Supreme Court case, I think back in the 80's.
The McDonnell Douglas framework is, is what it's what it's
called. It has three parts to it.
The the plaintiff, the person making the discrimination
charge, must establish that there's evidence of
discrimination. And that's usually a pretty low
bar. It's pretty easy to, at least on
its face, make that make that case.
So then assuming the plaintiff does that, the burden shifts to
the employer to provide a legitimate business reason, a
non discriminatory reason for whatever employment action was
taken. The plaintiff then has the
opportunity to show that the stated reason the the reason the
employer gave was actually a pretext for discrimination or
was just not credible. And so that is something that
the that the concurring opinion with Justice Thomas said this
should possibly also be on the chopping block because it
creates not to the extent that that the previous standard that
was over overturned today provided.
But it's it's because this is not this McDonnell Douglas
standard is not provided for in statute or in the Constitution.
We know Justice Thomas is a strict textualist when it fits
his his agenda that he thinks this should be on the chopping
block because it is so similar to what they have just overruled
overturned today. So I know that was that was a
lot of a lot of nuance there. But like so there is there is
this additional standard that doesn't create the same level of
burden for majority reverse discrimination plaintiffs, but
it does still make things a little bit different.
There's a little bit different level of the playing field.
Interesting. Thanks for walking us through
that. I have a question.
I have been of the belief, generally speaking, that proving
that a company acted in a discriminatory way is actually
like kind of difficult to do it in the context of, especially in
a circumstance where a company is making a decision with proper
protocols. And you know, what's the term
I'm looking for qualifiers. That said you, you kind of
shared that it's actually fairly easy to for a plaintiff to come
up with evidence that something could be discriminatory where
maybe I'm understanding incorrectly.
But do is my I guess, is my thought wrong that it's actually
much easier to prove discrimination and that it's
just a matter of the employer bearing that burden to prove
that it's not? So that's an excellent question
because it is difficult to prove discrimination.
It is easy to show evidence of discrimination.
And so. That's that's the difference.
So evidence of discrimination is you are a woman and you've been
fired, OK. Oh, that.
Is, so it's. Basically easy to call.
Discrimination. Exactly.
And so, so like, it can't be. It can't be so, so outrageous
like that. You know, there's four people
that work at the company and you're the one who was fired
because your position isn't is the only one in the company
that's not in sales and it's not generating revenue.
So and in an economic downturn like that is a legitimate
reason. So it probably wouldn't, that
might be like an example of something that may not move past
the first stage. But generally speaking, that
first stage is is fairly easy to show the possibility of
discrimination. It's not the same level of of
burden for a court to rule in your favor.
It's just saying, yeah, there's enough here that we should at
least move forward. Right.
That the the that the person could have a case saying that
the employer acted in a discriminatory way.
Interesting. I mean, I'm sure that there are
listeners out there who like myself who are thinking, yeah,
I've had employees say you're discriminating against me.
This is because I'm over the age of 40.
This is because I'm a woman. This is because I'm a person of
color, whatever that might be 99% of the time, at least in my
experience there, you can never guarantee it.
But there wasn't any discrimination necessarily in
any instance of having that type of reaction.
But obviously when I'm when employees feel scorned by a
certain decision, they don't take it well because sometimes
these are very, most of the time these types of decisions are
very impactful on someone's livelihood and all of that jazz.
That it's sometimes it feels like a threat to the company.
And then the company either, you know, decides to move on from it
or they end up getting, I guess sued potentially or getting a
strongly worded letter from an attorney that then proceeds to
some other facet of that process.
But what are you, what are your thoughts when when people do you
know, ultimately or maybe are at the end on the other end of a
layoff or are being laid off or have a decision that's that is
negative in generally speaking toward their livelihood.
They either lose their pay or they don't get a promotion or
whatever it is, I should say not lose their pay.
They lose their job when they, when a, when an employee reacts
that way, saying, oh, it's because of this discriminatory
thing. Would you say that companies
should be reacting a certain way?
Or is it still reasonable to say, hey, I'm an HR leader.
I know that, you know, obviously in our minds, we know that this
decision was not discriminatory. We're just going to say, you
know, we're sorry that you feel that way, we want to support
you, blah, blah, blah, and move on.
I'll say a couple of things on that and, and one of the things
that I that I often tell clients is that we can't eliminate risk.
We can understand risk and learn how to analyze it and prepare
for it. And exactly to your point,
that's kind of what HR is doing in, in that scenario that you
just laid out there and they're understanding what the what the
potential risks are and they're preparing for it.
You can't eliminate it. You can't stop somebody from
suing you. Going back to the discrimination
specifically, it's important to remember that in order to hit
that bar of proving discrimination, it has to be
tied to a protected class, a protected category.
So just being a woman who was fired is not necessarily
discrimination. Being a woman who was fired
because she is a woman is discrimination.
And I think that's that's a distinct difference.
And, and to your point about, you know, the emotion of, of
layoffs and it, it, it sucks and you know, we're seeing a lot of
that now, unfortunately. But to the emotion of it, a lot
of people think like, well, I'm in a protected category and I
was fired. And there may not necessarily be
a connection there between the protected category and the
termination itself. And that's where that's where
there's often times a disconnect with people who unfortunately
are part of a layoff or or a termination.
Right. Yeah, that's helpful.
I mean, I've heard it a dozen and 1/2 times, probably more
when people do react that way. And, and I think you're right,
it is you're ultimately doing a risk assessment and you're like,
well, is there any risk of litigation here?
Is there something that we should be looking at
differently? And I really think that most
times when someone, when a company, when an HR person is at
the helm of maybe not at the helm, but part of this decision
making, that they're aware enough and mindful enough that
there have to be, you know, a set of protocols when making
decisions like this, especially in mass layoffs and especially
if there are a number of people over the age of 40.
All of that, what is the older workers?
Something something act O WPBA. AM I getting that right?
Yeah, yeah. Older Workers Benefits
Protection Act, Yes. BPA perfect.
Yeah. That's like when and if you
don't know about this, look it up.
But you have to, you have to do an assessment to see, do you
have to report on to the employee being impacted?
How many other people are a part of that layoff?
And especially if there are more than a certain number of people,
kind of depends, I guess, on the, the amount of people being
impacted. But how many people are over the
age of 40? Because then it's, you know, it
could be something that looks discriminatory potentially, not
always. But I, I, I know that that's one
way that there are laws that protect people of a certain age,
for example. And it even applies outside of
layoffs. Right, right.
Over 40, yeah, if you're over 40, yeah.
There are lots of things that that sort of come into play if
it, even if it's a single termination, like for example,
you're you, you get extra time to review any severance
packages, you get time to revoke the package.
Yeah. So there's there's a lot of
things that employers need to understand about with layoffs
and even with single terminations depending on on the
characteristics of the individual.
Right, Perfectly said, and it's a good reminder for everyone to
know their rights. No way, No way you are owed.
Moving right along on to our next case where an opinion was
also released just a little bit earlier.
That is Catholic Charities V. Wisconsin, where the Catholic
Charities of Wisconsin was denied a state unemployment tax
exemption by the state Supreme Court, holding these particular
Catholic charity activities that were primarily charitable and
secular, not religious enough to qualify for the tax exemption.
The Supreme Court of the United States unanimously overturned
holding Catholic Charities that holding that they were entitled
or are entitled to the tax exemption because it operated
primarily for religious purposes.
Do you want to walk us through that?
Frankly, I'm actually surprised that anyone could decide that
something is not religious enough when it's like a
religious organization. You know, it's like a funny
thing to me, but I'm not an attorney.
Yeah. And so I have, I have some
publications in the last couple of months have asked me to to
write some articles on this. And I've always taken the
approach that I'm not going to be surprised by this decision,
that this is what the Supreme Court has said, but I disagree
with it. And so, yeah, you, you laid it
out perfectly. Essentially, Catholic Charities
set up its own unemployment program for it's employees that
were terminated or laid off. And the state of Wisconsin said
you can't do that. We have a program in our state
and I think like 45 or 46 states do, and it's mandatory.
And Catholic Charity said no, we have a religious exemption
because we're a religious organization.
And the Wisconsin Supreme Court said that's great, you're a
religious organization, but the work that you do is non
religious. You feed you, you know you you.
You feed and clothe people. Regardless of their background,
right? It's essentially non, it's
essentially secular activities, right?
So they are the the Wisconsin Supreme Court said you don't.
This exemption doesn't apply because the activities
themselves are not inherently religious.
The Supreme Court today again unanimously has said no
Wisconsin Supreme Court, That's incorrect.
It's not the activities, it's the organization.
So if the organization's mission and values is religious in
nature, they can have this unemployment tax exemption.
Wow. OK, Now I have a totally
different perspective on this because I was, I'm thinking
that, you know, all of their, I guess I was thinking similarly
that it's like based on the organization.
But then I think about all of these celebrities that open up
like their own charitable organizations and they have tax
exempt status. And it's like, well, it what are
you like your organization could be, you know, like there are
celebrities who open churches, for example.
I'm not going to name names because it's all allegedly,
allegedly, allegedly. They open up these these
churches or different houses of worship and then they have a tax
exempt status and God knows what happens under that status.
It feels like there maybe it's like one of those situations
where two things can be true at once, Like the organization
could be exempt because they are a religious organization and the
activities could still be tax liable, you know, but I, I know
that's not how it works. Yeah, exactly.
And, and the writing for the, the the court, Justice Katanji
Brown Jackson said something similar to that, that that the
government needed to remain neutral and avoid distinctions
based on theological differences when religious groups are
providing these types of secular activities.
And that's where they sort of leaned on that, that churches,
religious organizations can apply for and potentially
receive these types of tax exemptions, specifically in this
case unemployment. If they are providing sort of
charitable activities, regardless of the secular Ness
of the activities themselves, it's because the organization is
religious. I, I do think that this is going
to have sort of, we're going to see, we're going to see an
exodus of, of religious organizations from state
unemployment benefits, which is going to make that it's going to
shrink the pool. Yeah.
And to be clear, to be clear, if you work for, I probably should
have said this to begin with. If you work for a a religious
organization and you have an unemployment exemption in your
state, that doesn't mean you are exempt from unemployment.
You still have to have some sort of alternative system that at
least meets your state standards so that your employees are taken
care of when they're terminated or laid off.
So it doesn't mean you can avoid unemployment tax altogether.
There are some taxes religious organizations can avoid
altogether, but this is not one of.
Them right? I have so many questions about
this because like if one of their employees is terminated
and then they need to file for unemployment, they have to file
with their organization that terminated them.
I just, I just, I could see a lot of issues with that.
Yeah, there are some, there are some organizations that manage
this on a private basis for, for churches and and religious
organizations like this. So it may not be that you've got
to, you know, go back and talk to your boss necessarily or
internal HR. It may be a vendor, a third
party that, that you're dealing with much like a state agency.
But yes, Catholic Charities, if my memory is correct on, on the
actual case, they do actually have an internal unemployment
program. They don't.
They don't outsource that. Wow, this is really interesting.
I'd be curious to see if like anything comes of this, if you
know, to your point, the pool shrinks and that does impact the
other people outside of these particular organizations like
Catholic Charities, who then would be eligible for
unemployment insurance. Like I I'd be curious to see if
in these states where you can have this tax exemption as a
religious organization, if that changes the benefit structure
for everyone else because of the shrunk the the pool that's
shrinking. It it that's, that's certainly a
possibility because there's still the administration cost of
doing it for from the state perspective.
But in theory there would also be a reduction in the number of
applicants. So a shrunken pool of applicants
could match up with a shrunken pool of funds.
But I also think you could, you could end up seeing kind of like
you were saying earlier, organizations that aren't
necessarily religious. Have a.
Religious mission finding some way finding some way to to yeah
to to yeah, because this exemption.
Because if the, if, for example, if the state has a minimum for
the unemployment insurance percentage or the, the, the
rate, I actually am not super, super familiar in the
unemployment insurance and taxation category of things.
But let's say the state to your point has this, you know,
requirement for every organization.
Then you have an organization that is tax exempt from this,
like Catholic Charities, that the unemployment insurance
amount changes obviously based on the the the amount that
someone earns. Like if it's a percentage, then
obviously it increases. That increases the pool.
I could see organizations just adhering to the minimum, which
then also could impact when someone in their organization is
eligible. Then for that unemployment
insurance, they're not going to get the maximum that they're
allowed. They're going to get that
minimum whatever they contributed and I don't know, I
just see like the that sure it it makes sense.
It makes sense that someone you know is is eligible.
They'll go to their organization, yadda yadda,
yadda. But I don't know, I just, I
could see things like ramifications of this, whether
it's bureaucracy and like not getting the response because
there isn't the same level of accountability as there is at
the state level. Not to say that they do it 100%
correctly every time, but there is a very ironed out process in
most states. It's just interesting.
And then they have to like manage that process internally.
It feels like such a waste of money for them to do that.
But then it's like, well, are there advantages to having
someone manage that versus that, you know, that particular
employee going through the state?
I don't know. It's just very interesting.
And I, I, there probably are listeners out there who work for
religious organizations or organizations that are exempt
from this type of tax. So any words of advice for them?
Yeah, start with reviewing the the org's mission and and
activities. This, this case has made it
clear that it's not necessarily the activities that you're
engaging in, the charitable activities that are the
determining factor of whether you can, you can apply for and
receive this unemployment exemption.
It's whether your mission, whether you are inherently a
religious organization. So you need to make sure that
that's, that that's aligned and then look at your current
eligibility for the exemption under this, under this new sort
of standard to see if you if you still qualify or if maybe you
now do qualify. And then like we talked about
with with the third party vendors, look for alternative
systems to outsource that burden.
So it's not, it's not something that you have to shoulder
internally. Interesting.
One final question for you on this, and I don't know if you
know the answer. When a, when an organization has
a religious exemption, are there checks and balances that are
executed at the, at the government level where it's
like, oh, let's see how many employees you have on file?
We've got to do an audit of XY and ZI asked that because I just
wonder if bringing something like this internal could result
in a lack of compliance with what's actually required at the
state level. It's possible that could happen,
yes, generally speaking, so states manage their unemployment
somewhat differently depending on on where you're located.
So, but generally speaking, yes, the unemployment, essentially
the internal unemployment systems have to roughly match
what the state provides. But yeah, it's not the state
providing it. So to your point, what happens
if if the company isn't managing it correctly or is paying below
the minimum threshold for weekly, monthly benefits?
That requires, to your point earlier, for people to know
their rights. And that requires someone to not
only know their rights, but also then have the time, effort and
energy to go to the state and say, hey, this employer is not
is not managing their unemployment exemption
correctly. Interesting.
Got it. Thank you very much for
answering that. Yeah.
Know your rights, people. That's the best of that.
That's probably going to be the title of this episode.
Know your rights. That's it.
Just keeps coming back to that. So now we have a few minutes
left to talk about Texas and their AI regulation.
You want to walk us through that?
Yeah, so the real short version of this is they have passed a
new AI law. And yes, Texas somehow beat
California into the punch on this.
The the bill though is the the law is incredibly watered down.
It doesn't take effect until January 1st of 26.
It doesn't really even have much bite.
The law itself just addresses something that's already illegal
and that's discrimination against protected classes.
And as we talked about earlier, that's already illegal.
So all this does is clarify that using AI is also illegal if it
discriminates against protected classes.
I think it this is just my opinion.
I think the law's intent, as it was passed originally, it did
have some teeth, but as it was, as as it's been passed, I think
it's just an appearance from the state to have regulation while
avoiding significant burdens for employers.
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, look, frankly there have
been over the last couple of weeks, there have been reports
that have come out that companies that have been using
particular AI based or AI driven recruiting tools specifically
have have been sued for discrimination.
And we can probably dig into some of those cases, but in a
future policy Pulse segment as they come up.
But it's there's something here because we AI it's very similar
to social media. We saw this in the last 10 or 20
years where social media had no regulation And frankly there
still isn't much of any regulation for social media and
their ramifications to lack of regulation.
And ultimately the people who there were the the impacted
party when there's no regulation is generally an individual or
group of individuals. And so while I am surprised that
Texas was the first, effectively very surprised, shocked in fact,
I think it will cause a ripple effect.
Maybe not so much with the same breath, because I think
California and New York and New Jersey and maybe the
Massachusetts and a few other states will probably add some
more bite to their regulation. There's something really
important in this that AI is an amazing advent and technology.
It allows us to do so many things and yet we have to have
human intervention like there has to be, especially with
recruiting. There's already discrimination
and recruiting. So there has to be some level of
auditing checks and balances. Everything has to be set up in a
way that ensures a lot, you know, ensures that things are
done fairly equitably and non discriminatorily.
And I I just think about the really coming to recruitment and
AI like everything come AI gives you what you ask of it.
If you say we want someone with 15 years of experience, like
fine, it'll give you those outputs.
But if you don't also say that you want to have people from
different backgrounds or with different educational
experiences you want to see, you know, whatever those outputs
might look like, you do run the risk of AI only giving you this
one small segment or group of individuals, especially in the
recruiting side of things. I don't personally have any
experience with AI based recruitment, but I can only
imagine that in these companies where they're faced with
lawsuits effectively that they just kind of offloaded that
responsibility to the technology which is negligent.
Exactly. But I agree with you.
But in the three times, I think now in the last two or three
years, the EOC has said that sure, vendors can be liable, but
if you as the employer are using AI software and that software
discriminates against a candidate, an employee,
whatever, you are liable. Right, right.
And this comes back to our last Policy Pulse episode.
I think we talked about this too and it's true and it should be
that way. The employer is liable you it's
like just because you pay for an Amex platinum doesn't mean that
when your card is stolen, you get, you know, Amex is
responsible. Like, I mean, sure, they cover,
you know, there's fraud coverage and stuff like that.
Maybe it's a bad example, but like at the end of the day, you
are the the benefactor. You were the person like, you
know, that is employing A vendor.
And I think this is where it makes sense to me that vendors
are or AI technology or AI tools is not to blame here.
It's, it's how we as HR professionals, as business
owners use and embed this technology across everything.
It's not even just recruitment, but really anything like there
was that case. I don't know how many years ago
at this point where or not case, but the situation where
attorneys were using ChatGPT, this must have been a couple
like when ChatGPT first came out.
You probably know what I'm talking about.
They used ChatGPT to look up case law and it was wrong.
And then there was like a whole issue with this.
I don't know all the details, but you know, Chachi BT does not
always get it right. You have to still have human
intervention. And it's not just Chachi
allegedly, allegedly, it's not just Chachi BT it's really any
AI tool. And and as we've talked about ad
nauseam at this point, but it'll be interesting to see what other
states kind of come to come to bat with AI regulations.
It will be and I think that like you said, there are some states
that that already have some some AI legislation sort of working
its way through their through their state houses that have
actual teeth. My fear is that because there
will be a discrepancy between state laws on some AI laws
having teeth and some not some regulations, I'm not the Supreme
Court is going to step in and and make a yeah, make a ruling
on that to decide what is what is appropriate across the board.
I do think that like your point about social media is, is spot
on. And that is my sort of my
doomsday approach is that my doomsday thought is that we
dropped the ball big time as a society on social media and the
lack of regulation and we did not learn our lesson and we were
going to do the same thing with AI.
Oh, interesting. I think it's going to be
completely unregulated. It's going to be there's because
it's. Too hard to regulate.
I don't. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of
nuances to it for sure. But there's, there's a, there's
a push in the House, the US House, not state federal house,
to pass a law that essentially places a moratorium on AI
regulation for 10 years, meaning there can be no state law
regulation of AII. Don't, I don't think.
It's got AI don't think it's got a big chance of of passing.
I think it's frankly more for show.
But it's, it's a, it's a, it's a non zero chance that it passes.
And that, like, we now have regulation that says you can't
touch AI for a decade and then, you know, in a decade we're all
out of a job. Wow.
Yeah, Well, that's the risk, right?
That's what I was thinking. I was like, what?
It's so interesting. I mean, let's say that that were
the case, can private companies still have AI policies then?
I would assume so, right. Like if they said, oh, we don't,
you know, don't put customer information, don't put
proprietary information in, like you don't know who's on the
receiving end of what you're putting in.
Absolutely. But if there's one thing in in a
capitalist society that I don't trust, and that is corporations
to do the right thing. Totally, Yeah.
So we need regulation. Exactly.
I mean. Look at social media, yeah.
Absolutely. That's that's the perfect
example. We we dropped the ball on that
and and we're going to do the same thing here.
Interesting. Well, you heard it here first to
Mark, I'm going to mark your words.
You said it at the 36 minute mark.
You know, I, I can't let go of the social media thing because
frankly, I'm, I've said it before on the podcast that I
feel like I have to be on social media because of my business,
podcast, whatever. And there's part of me that's
like so anti social media. I just don't want it because I
feel like it's this like all consuming thing, which is a big
part of what kind of sparked discussions around regulation,
especially social media for people under a certain age,
kids, etcetera. And like, what's allowed?
And there were major issues with content moderation.
There still continues to be issues with content moderation
and what is allowed to exist. And then it brings up this whole
topic of freedom of speech if you're in the US, but what if
you're outside? Because every, you know, you can
be from Zimbabwe posting. And I could see that content
here in New York. It's just one of those things I
can understand why there's no regulation because it is kind of
that runaway train that you just you create regulation and then
there's something else and you have to create, right?
And it's like, how do you manage that?
And then obviously the social media creators, they have been
notoriously anti regulation notoriously because some have
changed their stance in some ways that allegedly no, But it's
like then they they don't want the regulation because that
restricts what they're able to do, the money that they're able
to make. I Remember Remember when
Facebook first hit the stock market, everyone was like,
Facebook's not going to make money and Facebook's making
money. And it's because there was no
regulation. There is no regulation.
Obviously social or digital advertising has become the major
player in the last several years.
So it's I agree, we dropped the ball.
It'll be really interesting to see how the pendulum swings,
though, because I don't think I'm alone in this feeling of
like, social media sucks, even though you kind of have to be
there in order to be in the know.
And I just wonder how, like, generationally, things will
change. And then I say that and it's
like, well, Gen. Z is making their money on
social media, so maybe it won't change.
I don't know. It's crazy and wild.
It is and it is. And I think that we're going to
see a lot more tech advancement before we see any semblance of
of regulation in that space. I think it's just it, yeah.
I think we're just, I mean, laws generally, Congress generally is
pretty slow to adapt, which is somewhat by design, but it's
with something this complex with, I don't mean to make fun
of most people in Congress, but like, they don't understand how
all of this works. And I'm not saying that I do
either, but like, they are generations removed from the
creation of this type of stuff. And so for them to be the ones
that are in charge of the regulation, yeah.
I don't have much. I don't have much faith I guess.
Yeah, it's really interesting, really interesting.
It'll be very interesting. What's another word for
interesting? You know, very, very
fascinating. Yes.
Thank you. Interesting.
Very fascinating to see how
everything shakes out. I'm curious.
Yeah. Well, look, at least we talk
again next month and maybe there will be, maybe someone will hear
this episode and say we need to regulate social media psych.
Well, in that case, Ryan, thank you so much for walking us
through all this. I'm sure there's going to be
more to talk about on the AI front, especially since Texas
was the 1st to do it in California is probably cringing
about that. So thank you again for your time
and and always appreciate your your expertise of.
Course. Thank you, Tracy.
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